


something's always wrong

by insunshine



Category: Veronica Mars (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-01-15
Updated: 2007-01-15
Packaged: 2017-11-13 03:53:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/499163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/insunshine/pseuds/insunshine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set in a completely alternate reality. Mac and Madison weren't switched at birth, but the McKenzies were the wealthy family, not the Sinclairs, so Mac was an 09er from birth up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	something's always wrong

He wakes up every morning with his arms wrapped around her.

 

She’s a really light sleeper, so he always has to worry about disturbing her, always has to start and stop and start again, because she’s been so tired since they lost the baby, and she doesn’t get enough sleep as it is, and even though everything else in her life is his fault, he’d like to not take away this too.

 

No matter how hard he tries though-and he does, he tries so hard, for all the times he didn’t and could have, and when he wouldn’t but should have. He was the worst brother imaginable, but every morning when he wakes up, he vows to be the best husband.

 

What he doesn’t say out loud, is that he doesn’t know how he can be.

 

 _Leaving already?_ She mumbles, and he can barely see her because she’s hidden underneath the comforter he’d up pulled off the floor.

 

 _Burgers ain’t gonna sling themselves;_ he whispers back, because if he doesn’t talk to her too much, she’ll be able to go back to sleep. She pops her eyes open though, and leans her head against her palm.

 

_Dick, it’s 5 in the morning. I know you’re trying to prove something, but I don’t need-_

 

 _Yes you do;_ he whispers, and he’s out the door before she can finish. He can’t listen to her tell him once again that she can get money for them from someplace else. He knows that someplace. He lived with that someplace before he flunked out of college. He does not want her going back there.

 

When he unlocks his car though, and the nighttime streetlights, that haven’t gone out, because the sun hasn’t even risen yet, bounce off the metal of the car, he’s surprised to see a set of headlights beaming across his face. He’s surprised, but he shouldn’t be. 

 

The bastard is here every day.

 

*

 

He’s home at noon, and at one, she’s out the door, her voice all giggles and light, her arms filled with bags and books, plans and ideas.

 

 _I’ll be back by dinner;_ she calls out as the screen door slams, and he sits there wondering, if this is what it takes to make her happy, who is he to complain?

 

*

 

She’s as late coming home as she always is, and the bed creaks as she climbs in beside him, her hand slipping over his across his stomach.

 

 _Sorry I’m so late, honey;_ she whispers, and her gold tipped curls make swishing noises beneath his chin while she gets situated. _Mac’s car broke down again._

 

 _Beetles are so unpredictable, you know;_ he whispers, stealing her words, eyes open and staring blankly at the ceiling, counting the cracks. She nods, and he can feel her breath on his chest.

 

He tries not to think about how wonderful this would all be if he couldn’t smell another man’s cologne on her skin.

 

*

 

 _I don’t know anything, Dick;_ she mutters when she sees him standing in the doorway to her den, and her eyes are just as tired as his seem to be. For a second, the righteous indignation kicks up. He knows that she knows and he hates it. Hates that even though he’s known her longer, her ties lay with his wife. He hates that more than anything, and he’s never questioned why.

 

He knows she’s lying, and that’s what’s keeping him here. Rational Dick is gone, he would have slammed out of here with the first of her withering glances, but as it is, he can’t keep living this half-life with a girl he knows will never love him, and he just wants some answers.

 

_Of course you do, McKenzie._

 

 _Yeah? You tell me what I’m supposed to know then, Dick, and I’ll relay it back to you._ She mutters, as she bends and throws another book into the cardboard box by her feet. It’s the first time he’s noticed that she seems to be-packing for something?

 

 _You going somewhere?_ He asks, and her eyes are clear as they look back into his, and doesn’t know how he gets there, but suddenly, his hand is cupping her cheek, and there are tears slipping through the cracks between his fingers.

 

 _Veronica didn’t tell you?_ She asks after exactly 15 seconds of collecting herself. Her back is already turned and she’s wiping her hands on her jeans, and mumbling something to herself as she bends and throws another something else into the box that’s now next to his feet too.

 

_In case you hadn’t noticed, my wife and I aren’t actually the best communicators in the world._

 

 _Really? I wouldn’t have guessed._ She looks at him over her shoulder, and for the first time, since his brother died last spring, he thinks, she doesn’t look broken, or sad, or guarded, even. She just looks like the girl he used to play Sand Castle with when he was six. _And here I thought you visited for the sterling conversation._

 

She’s giggling a little, and as she straightens, her giggling intensifies until she’s standing back next to him, and their shoulders are brushing a little.

 

 _So you’re really finally leaving him?_ He asks, when their laughter has subsided, and they’re standing comfortable in the silent twilight. She tenses when he motions to the mess, and the boxes, and when he looks at her; her light is gone.

 

_It’s not that, just…I got an internship at the New York Times. Since I can’t actually commute to good ole NYC every morning, that would be a yes._

 

She’s looking at him expectantly, like he should be saying something, and it’s true, he’s Dick Casablancas, he has an opinion for everything, but this…

 

 _You know;_ he says a full minute later, and his voice is as scratchy as sandpaper, and his eyes are looking at the ground, and not at her, even though he knows she needs to do this. _When I told you to leave him last month, I meant that you should move out to like San Diego or something, not clear across the country._

 

_But no one was offering an internship in San Diego, Dick, and even then, it’s-it would be too close._

 

The word slips out on a sigh, and _finally_ , he gets it. His eyes ago a little wide even as hers are drifting closed, and she’s looking down and over and away and anywhere but at him.

 

 _But what-?_ The words tumble out of his mouth before he even realizes what he’s saying, and for once, he’s glad he can’t see her eyes, because that means that she’s not looking at him, and she can’t see the red tinge that’s taken residence on his cheeks. _I have to go to work;_ he mutters, and he’s moving to push past her, but she’s standing at the same time, and somehow, they get tangled up in one another.

 

 _But what?_ She asks, and even though her smile is gone, her eyes are still wide and perceptive, and she doesn’t look like a dead guy’s girlfriend. She looks like the beautiful girl next door that he’s loved since before he knew what love was.

 

The realization takes him by surprise, even though it shouldn’t. Right before his last round of treatments, when Beaver’s normally pale skin was ghostly white, and he could barely open his eyes anymore, and even when it used to hurt him to talk, he would say it, everyday _(It just kills you that I got her first, doesn’t it? You can move in now, because look who’s dying!)_ , and the laugh that accompanied it would wrack his skeletal frame so hard, that Dick used to think he would break in two.

 

His little brother was obviously far more perceptive than he’d ever realized.

 

 _Nothing. I have to go. I’ll see you tomorrow, or next week or something;_ he mutters, and he’s moving faster than he has in years, and he’s almost at the door when her voice floats out, surrounding him.

 

_I won’t be here next week, Dick._

 

He wants to, he wants to stop so bad, and turn around, and rush back in there, but he can’t. It nearly kills him, but he keeps going.

 

It’s the only form of self-preservation he knows.

 

*

 

He used to tally it all up; how many times she was late coming in, how many times she just didn’t come home at night, how much of a ridiculous sham their marriage really was, and how many times she stumbled over her steps, smelling of whiskey and sex and tears.

 

He barely opens his eyes when she comes in now, doesn’t care how bedraggled she looks and the fact that there’s a hickey taking up space on her neck that he knows with absolutely certainty, he didn’t put there.

 

He used to wonder if it was his fault that she didn’t love him. He used to sit there for the hours that she was gone, making lists in his head, mini movie montages playing before his eyes, and it would clench at his heart and turn his insides out, but now, while she’s gone, he just sleeps.

 

There’s nothing better to do.

 

*

 

She’s been gone three months when he gets the postcard. The front is simple, just some snow on a landscape, but he knows who it’s from instantly; he doesn’t even have to turn over.

 

He’s been looking at her handwriting since the third grade when she let him cheat off her spelling test in exchange for his POG Collectables case. In the 15 years since then, it hasn’t changed that much, and it makes him smile a little until he realizes that she’s still gone and there’s nothing to be smiling about.

 

Her words are simple, she talks about the sights and sounds and smells, and the card is so cramped with her tiny writing that he can barely make out some of the words, but he reads them anyway, savoring it all.

 

The last line is smudged, but big enough so that he can see it even without the glasses he’s been prescribed but never uses.

 

 _I miss you_ , it says, and the answers are all there.


End file.
